The Productivity Commission in Australia (PC) in 2016 released a report Migrant Intake into Australia which made significant recommendations about tightening parental visa procedures as well as increasing their fees. The reason was that the visa program was taking between 335,000 and 410,000 per adult from taxpayers’ money. When stretched out to a year, the figures were hitting between $2.6 and $3.2 billion — and they keep growing.

These parent visas only offer a short-term benefit to the country’s budget via visa application fees. But then, in the longer term, they come with such heavy impacts imposed by large costs coming from health, care for the aged as well as social care.

For this reason, the government is introducing a new parent visa that will be available come April this year.

So migrants in Australia who wish for their parents to come to join them in the country will be able to submit a sponsorship application for the temporary Sponsored Parent visa starting from April 17 this year.

The legislation that birthed this latest visa was passed in November 2018.

From July 1, the plan is that applications for the visa will be opened.

This temporary Sponsored Parent visa (subclass 870) grants parents and grandparents the opportunity to rejoin and spend time together in Australia for a period of up to 5 years.

After the expiration of the first five years, applicants can apply for a second visa which also has a 5-year validity but will have to do it from outside Australia. This allows them to spend up to 10 years with their families in Australia.

Is this visa only friendly?

Some members of the Indian community have complained that the visa is too expensive. The 3-year visa costs $5,000, the 5-year visa, $10,000, while the 10-year visa costs $20,000.

Children of the parents will have to pay the healthcare bills of their parents. This is because all sponsors of this visa are legally bound to be the financial guarantor of the visa holder. This covers all public health costs caused by the visa holder.

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